Passover

My Grandfather's Seder • How To Make Gefilte Fish • A Recipe
Farfel Definitions • Links

My Grandfather's Seder
Reflections from Rabbi Silver:

Pesach is a joyous time of year, with friends and family gathered around the table, singing songs, sharing food, recounting our experiences in leaving the slavery of Egypt behind us. Pesach is supposed to stimulate memory, and so we all have our remembrances of seders past. We remember sitting together with those whom we loved, usually a grandparent seated at the head of the table, leading the family in worship on this solemn/joyous/sacred night.

For many of us, the sight of Grandfather seated there at the head of the table remains our most vivid memory. Imagine my delight, then, when a congregant once told me that my seder reminded him of his grandfather's, and that he hadn't had a seder like that in many years. What he was trying to say was that I had evoked some of those early childhood memories, waiting to sing Dayenu, watching to see if the wine level in Elijah's cup would really drop as they said it would, searching for the Afikoman, and falling asleep with Grandfather's face the last thing before our sleep-blurred eyes. I was humbled and honored, and at the same time, I felt a nostalgic twinge, recalling seders of my youth, and I tried to remember what it was about those seders that I most remembered.

Like them, I remembered my grandfather, the smells of cooking, the delicious foods, the matzah, and everything else. But with the passage of years, my grandfather's seder became a thing of the past. It was my father, now become the family patriarch, sitting at the head of the table. Yet the seder was the same. The foods, the singing, the feeling of joy, the sense of recapturing those moments of so long ago when we relived the experience of going out of Egypt. In time, I grew up, and feeling somewhat strange, I slid into the place at the head of the table. Looking around, I see my wife and children, my mother occasionally attending, telling me that my seder is like my father's. Friends and family take their seats around the table where once the grownups sat, and I realize that we are now the grownups. And the crowd of children, where once I and my friends and my cousins played have picked up the tradition and are raucously enjoying the same seder that I loved when I was their age. And I remember.

I remember my father's seder, though he's been gone over twenty years. I remember my grandfather's seder, half a century ago. And the memories of their seders mingle with mine and I remember what it is that I remember. I remember that I am a Jew who left Egypt, and who promised God that every year, I would celebrate this event, precisely so that I might remember. I remember that my grandfather and my father brought their joy and their spirit to the seder. I remember so that I might relive the experience each year, and pass the memories on to my children, as did my father before me, and his father before him. It is in this fashion that my Grandfather's seder remains intact today, as vibrant as it was when he sat at the head of the table. Some day, if it please God, I will be the grandfather who sits there, and my grandchildren will remember that it was I who gave them that.

And now, as the Talmud so often asks, mai nafka minei –what is the point of all this? The point is that you don't have to come to my house to see your grandfather's seder. You can do it at your home just as well as I do it at mine. You can take your memories of Passover and make them come alive around your table, providing your children and your grandchildren some of Jewish value that will stay with them through the years. You can make your grandfather's seder your own, and with it, succeed in transmitting your Jewish faith through the ages.

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A Passover Recipe
Lillian's Matzoh Farfel for Soup or Noshing!

My mother-in-law (Lillian Rothman) never used recipes when cooking. Through the years, I've tired to recreate her farfel recipe and have come pretty close to the original. It wouldn't be Passover without this farfel!

* 1 box matzoh farfel
* 2 large diced onions
* 4 eggs
* chicken fat or oil -- enough to moisten mixture
* salt and pepper to taste
* 2 greased cookie sheets

Mix the first 5 ingredients.
Spread out onto the 2 greased cookie sheets.
Bake 10 minutes at 350 degrees.
Take the pans out of the oven and separate the farfel into little pieces.
Put the pans back in the oven and bake for another 10-15 minutes or until golden brown.

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Farfel Definitions

Note: In 1988 when we published Seasoned With Tradition, Sisterhood's Cookbook, we asked the Sunday School children what they thought farfel was. Here are some of their responses:

* little white things you put in chicken soup
* great-grandmother
* a little piece of chicken
* the N-E-S-T-L-E-S dog
* matzoh crumbs

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Links

* Passover on the Net
* Uncle Eli's Hagaddah(especially for kids)
* The Virtual Seder Plate
* Passover - Audio Classes(Hear the sounds of the seder and more)
* Kosher Express Passover Recipes
* Passover Activities(lesson plans for teachers, youth leaders and parents)
* Yom Tov - Pesach

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